


harder than a bullet could hit you

by escapismandsharpobjects



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Episode: s01e13 Recovering the Satellites, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, aka im still salty about how there was no aftermath of kyle getting shot!, can be read as platonic or romantic, my god im still so bad at summaries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:02:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24690490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escapismandsharpobjects/pseuds/escapismandsharpobjects
Summary: set in the midst of s01e13, kyle and alex in the aftermath of kyle and jesse's fight.
Relationships: Alex Manes & Kyle Valenti
Comments: 6
Kudos: 42





	harder than a bullet could hit you

**Author's Note:**

> hi!! thanks for making it here past my shitty summary lol, but anyway i will always be upset that kyle just...gets shot and then its like, never a plot point again??? so i fixed that a little and maybe fucked up the timeline a bit but whatever,,,my canon now. hope you enjoy! (also i wrote this intending it to be more platonic but i think i may have created a romantic or like pre-romantic undercurrent so...whoops)

He wasn’t expecting to see Kyle Valenti here-at least, not sitting in a chair in the hospital reception area, staring blankly ahead, looking  _ off  _ in a way Alex thinks looks very odd on him. 

“Hey, Valenti,” he says, walking to the front desk. He sighs. “I’m here for Jesse Manes? They said he was in some sort of coma.”

The woman behind the desk nods, gives him a room number, and pats his arm in a sorry-about-your-dad kind of way that would be nice if it were anyone else’s dad. He smiles tightly, and heads off to find the room.

He doesn’t realize until he’s standing in the doorway that Kyle hadn’t said hello back to him, which shouldn’t be a big deal...he’d give it more thought, maybe, but right now, here is  _ Jesse fucking Manes, _ in a coma and for once rendered completely harmless.  _ It’s what he deserves, _ Alex thinks.  _ Better than what he deserves, really. _ But what had happened? His father was certainly not the type of person to slip quietly into a coma. 

He leans against the doorframe, staring daggers at the unconscious form on the bed. His father had the nerve to come back from Niger (probably because of a certain  _ incident  _ which Alex would rather not think about at the moment) and then promptly fall into a coma before Alex could even threaten him with...something,  _ anything  _ to keep him away. 

He stews in his thoughts for several minutes before someone taps his shoulder. He jumps slightly, spinning quickly around. 

A nurse smiles apologetically at him. “Sorry about that,” he says. “Alex Manes, right?”

Alex nods. “Do you know what happened to him?” he asks, gesturing into his father’s room.

“Not exactly,” the nurse says. “Dr. Valenti brought him in maybe half an hour ago, said they were working on a project together and he just collapsed.”

Alex nods again, and thanks the nurse, who tells him that as soon as they know more, Alex will be the first to know. Alex doesn’t bother to tell him that he really couldn’t care less. 

He makes his way back to the hospital reception, thinking less of his father and more of Kyle. Questions like,  _ Why is he still here? _ and  _ Did they get into a fight? _ swirl around in his head as he emerges back into the room. 

Kyle is still there, still staring off into nothing, a blank look on his face. Hesitantly, Alex approaches him. “Hey,” he says, tapping Kyle lightly on the shoulder. “You good? I heard you brought my father in.”

Kyle doesn’t say anything, just takes a sharp breath in, then winces. Alex frowns.  _ “Kyle,” _ he says, more insistently. “Did something happen?”

And Kyle  _ runs. _ Shoots up from his chair and bolts out the hospital doors. Alex stumbles backward in surprise, staring ahead out the doors for a second in disbelief.  _ Something is wrong, _ he thinks, and he’s just about to follow Kyle outside when there’s yet another tap on his shoulder.

He whirls around.  _ “What,” _ he says, sounding more irritated than he had intended to. 

It’s the same nurse from before, who gives him that same apologetic grin. “Sorry again,” he says. “I just thought I’d let you know we’re going to be moving your dad to a new room tonight, if you want to come and visit him again.”

“Yeah,” Alex says distractedly, craning his neck to see if he can spot Kyle somewhere outside. He accepts the card the nurse gives him with his father’s new room number on it and says a terse goodbye. He doubts he’ll be doing much visiting.

Alex heads outside, hoping to catch Kyle, if he’s still here. Something is  _ most definitely _ wrong with him, and considering everything they’ve been involved in lately, he’s sure it’s going to end up involving him too, at some point. _ Better to learn about it now than later,  _ he reasons. Plus, he can’t shake the feeling that this has something to do with his father, which is never a good feeling to have.

He’s in luck-he’s no sooner left the hospital reception area than he sees Kyle-or rather, the back of Kyle. He’s hunched over a trash can, clearly having just been sick, and Alex sees his hands shaking where they grip the edges of the can. He stands there for a second, unsure of what to do. 

Kyle abruptly pushes himself away from the trash can, walking backwards until his back presses against a pillar. He sinks to the ground and runs a hand down his face. Alex clears his throat, and finally, Kyle looks at him.

“Hi,” he says, his voice scratchy. He lets out a shuddery exhale, and Alex, without particularly thinking, sinks down slowly next to him. 

This close, he can feel that Kyle is shaking, and it scares him a little. Kyle is steady and strong, and this is extremely unlike him. He tries his question again-“what’s wrong?”-but Kyle just shakes his head. 

Alex sighs, unsure of what to do. He can’t just leave Kyle here-he’s in no condition to drive, and he doesn’t seem like he has any intention of moving, anyway. But can Alex just...make him leave? They aren’t that close, not yet, not anymore...but Kyle is, if not a  _ friend  _ exactly, then an ally, and you don’t leave an ally behind. Especially if he may be in some serious trouble. (With Jesse Manes involved, it’s  _ always  _ serious trouble). 

Alex stands up, pushing against the pillar for balance. Once he’s on his feet, he extends a hand to Kyle, who looks at it, then at him, blankly. 

“Come on,” Alex says. “I won’t ask what happened,”  _ not right now, anyway, _ he thinks, “but you can’t just stay here and I’m not gonna let you drive like this.”

Kyle nods, finally, takes a deep breath which he aborts halfway through, and takes Alex’s hand. 

They drive in silence for a while, Alex absentmindedly tapping his thumbs on the steering wheel, fighting the urge to turn the radio on, so there’s at least  _ something. _ Beside him, Kyle is uncharacteristically quiet, hands in his lap, staring out the window like he wants to melt the buildings of Roswell with his brain.

It’s weird.

And then, as Alex makes the turn onto the road that leads to the cabin, Kyle...well, he doesn’t  _ say  _ anything, but he makes a noise, anyway, one which sounds panicked and afraid.

Alex glances over at his passenger, who is now trying frantically to remove his shirt, but his hands are shaking too much to undo the buttons. He reaches a hand out, moving Kyle’s hands away from his shirt. 

“You’re fine,” he says, keeping his voice quiet and calm. “It’s okay.” He doesn’t know what else to say, doesn’t know what’s got Kyle like this, but he’s growing more and more sure that it has something to do with Jesse Manes.

His vague words of reassurance do the job, mercifully, and Kyle’s hands return to his lap. Alex can practically feel the stress rolling off of him, and he hates it, without really knowing  _ why. _ He drives a little faster.

Eventually, they make it to Alex’s cabin. Kyle practically falls out of the car, and Alex has to nearly drag him up to the door. Once they get inside, Alex shrugs out of his jacket and hangs up his keys, directing Kyle to sit on the couch but giving him a second to get comfortable. He grabs two glasses of water from the kitchen and returns to the living room, where Kyle is once again trying-and failing-to remove his shirt.

Alex sets down the glasses on the table and sits next to Kyle on the couch. “You need some help there?” he asks, trying to keep the mood light. 

Kyle looks at him, his expression pleading and anything but light. “Alex, please, I can’t…” He fumbles with a button, cursing as his hands refuse to steady enough to keep a hold on it.

“Yeah, I got it,” Alex says gently, unbuttoning Kyle’s shirt. He stops when he feels a familiar material underneath.

“What...Kyle, this is a bulletproof vest…” he stops talking for a minute as the pieces rapidly connect in his mind. “He shot you,” he says finally, hating the fact that he believes this so easily.  _ Shooting civilians... _ not like this would be the first time his father’s hurt someone he cares about. He shakes himself out of that line of thinking in time to hear Kyle’s whispered, “yeah, he shot me...I was gonna buy a gun, Alex, but I-I couldn’t, I-”

He’s on the verge of hyperventilating, Alex notices. He hesitantly reaches out a hand, places it across the stiff fabric of the vest. “It’s okay, Kyle,” he says, taking a deep breath in the hopes that the doctor will copy it. “Just breathe, okay?”

Kyle takes a breath, wincing. “It hurts,” he mutters. “Like...like someone hit me with a baseball bat. Or, like, a truck.”

Alex nods sympathetically, reaching to undo the straps of the vest. “That pain will most likely be the worst of it. People don’t usually break ribs or anything, not with this kind of vest, and my father’s kind of gun. You’ll probably have a nice bruise for a couple weeks, though.”

Kyle gives him a shaky smile as Alex slides the vest off. “Now who’s the doctor?” he jokes, and Alex half smiles back, glad that Kyle seems to be doing a little better. His smile turns to a grimace as he observes the damage his father has inflicted. Kyle looks down at himself, at the dark bruise forming over his heart. 

“I would have died,” he whispers, shaking his head like he can’t quite believe it. 

“Yeah,” Alex agrees. There’s no point in sugarcoating it-he is fully aware of what his father is capable of, and he’s sorry that Kyle had to learn those capabilities like this, but it’s the truth.

Kyle nods slowly, then looks around. “I can go,” he says at last, not sounding particularly attached to the idea.

Not that Alex would let him, not like this. He tells him as much: “Kyle, there is no way I am going to let you leave when you’ve just been shot, and by my father, no less.”

A thought occurs to him then, and it scares him with how much he hopes it’s not true-maybe Kyle  _ does  _ want to leave, because Jesse _ Manes _ shot him,  _ Alex’s father  _ shot him, and-

“You’re sure I won’t be a bother?” Kyle asks, jolting Alex out of that particular line of thinking. He looks so genuinely unsure, like he doesn’t believe Alex  _ wants  _ him to stay,  _ needs  _ him to stay-he needs some kind of stability right now, honestly, and while he never would’ve thought that would come in the form of Kyle Valenti, he’s not going to complain. 

“Of course you won’t, Kyle,” and then, because he has to be sure, “as long as you’re okay staying with the son of your would-be murderer.”

“Hey,” Kyle says, his voice stronger than it had been a second before. “Don’t say that-I mean, you can say the part about him almost murdering me, but it’s not like you  _ chose  _ to be his son. You didn’t make him shoot me.  _ Nothing  _ he does is your fault.” He smiles again, like that will negate the seriousness in his voice. There’s something like fondness on his face, and his hands have stopped shaking, Alex realizes. He doesn’t really know what to do with that, so he simply says, “yeah.”  _ It feels nice to hear that, _ he manages to admit to himself. He gives Kyle a genuine smile and moves to stand up.

“Where are you going?” Kyle asks, reaching out a hand to stop him.

“I’m gonna grab you some painkillers, maybe get a snack. You want anything?”

Kyle shakes his head, and Alex heads off to gather his items, listening to the sounds of the long-awaited storm rolling in. _ All the more reason to keep Kyle here, _ he thinks. 

He heads back to the living room, passing Kyle a bottle of ibuprofen and a hot mug of tea. He watches as Kyle takes the medicine (more pills than Alex would usually take, but Kyle’s a doctor, so Alex trusts that he knows what he’s doing) and wraps his hands around the steaming mug. He shivers a little, and Alex, without thinking, tugs a blanket off the back of the couch and carefully drapes it around Kyle’s shoulders. 

Kyle startles a little at the contact before relaxing into the warmth of the blanket with a light sigh. He stares into his mug of tea pensively for a few moments before he says, “thanks, Alex. For all of this.”

Alex nods, shifting to prop his legs up on the table. “Thanks for stopping my father.”

Kyle shifts uncomfortably. “He’s gonna wake up eventually,” he says. “I didn’t really think about that, I didn’t think-”

“Stop,” Alex cuts him off gently with a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, he’s out of the picture, and that’s good enough.”

“Okay,” Kyle agrees, leaning back against the couch. He looks exhausted, and rightfully so. Alex reaches for the remote, turning on the TV, as outside the first drops of rain begin to fall. 

“What’re we watching?” Kyle asks, setting down his relatively-untouched mug of tea and curling deeper into the blanket.

“Star Wars, Episode Four,” Alex says, grabbing a second blanket from under the table to drape across his legs. 

“Four? What about the first three?” Kyle asks, sounding legitimately concerned.

“It’s not like that,” Alex replies with a laugh. “This is the first one.”

“What-”

“Shh! It’s starting.”

Kyle raises his right hand in mock surrender. A deep rumble of thunder booms overhead, and he unconsciously leans into Alex, who scoffs slightly but allows it, carefully shifting himself to avoid jostling Kyle’s injury. It’s not quiet, not with the storm raging overhead, but it is peaceful. In the morning, it will not be. In the morning, the damage from tonight’s storm will become apparent, and they will have to begin repairing it, as best as they can. But for now, for just a moment, all is well. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading this!! i've been rewatching the show in preparation for the s2 finale and i had this idea and simply had to go with it lol, i hope it was ok, please lmk your thoughts!


End file.
